Counterbalance
by fyd818
Summary: Lucy's having a very, very bad day. Thankfully, Wyatt's there to help her through it. Takes place between "The Murder of Jesse James" and "Karma Chameleon." :hints of Wyatt x Lucy:
1. Part I: Lucy

Disclaimer: I don't own _Timeless_ or any characters, ideas, places, or things therein. I am writing this fic for entertainment purposes only, not for monetary gain of any kind. The aforementioned belong to NBC, Sony, Universal, Eric Kripke, Shawn Ryan, etc.

Summary: Lucy's having a very, very bad day. Thankfully, Wyatt's there to help her through it. Takes place between "The Murder of Jesse James" and "Karma Chameleon." :hints of Wyatt x Lucy:

Rating: K+

Warnings: Lucy suffers from symptoms of a migraine, so mentions of great pain/nausea/etc.

Pairing(s): Wyatt/Lucy, Rufus/Jiya

Spoilers: _The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln_ , _The Last Ride of Bonnie and Clyde_ , _The Murder of Jesse James_ , _Karma Chameleon_

 **Special Thanks:** To everyone who's reviewed, favorited, and sent me messages about my first two _Timeless_ fics. Your kind words and encouragement is awesome - thank you!

 **Author's Note:** I couldn't help but notice how the dynamic between Wyatt and Lucy had changed between _The Murder of Jesse James_ and the beginning of _Karma Chameleon_. Things were so tense between them during the former that it seemed strange it had relaxed by the time _Karma Chameleon_ came around. This fic is just a little theory of mine, a way to explain the shift between them between the two episodes. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

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 ***~Counterbalance~***

 _.:fyd818:._

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They'd never had a mission go bust in quite such a way before. In a way it was nice - it meant Garica Flynn _hadn't_ been in the Depression era wreaking havoc on the way history was supposed to play out.

But what really worried Lucy Preston was the fear Flynn was somewhere else instead, muddling up history so badly in ways they didn't know, and the Time Team had just been on a wild goose chase.

Hot little needles of pain clawed at Lucy's head, shoulders, and back as she accepted Wyatt Logan's proffered hand. Smiling thinly, she took the first ungainly step off the edge of the Lifeboat and onto the set of rolling steps there to help her down.

She tried not to think about the fact the steps seemed to be swaying under her, and the room tilted and swirled like some sick carnival ride.

At the bottom of the stairs, Lucy stepped to the side so Rufus Carlin could follow her down. She kept her lips sealed against the nausea pressing against her throat, allowing him to voice the complaints she would have if she didn't feel like her lunch was about to revisit her.

"Nothing!" Rufus railed to their employer, Connor Mason. "Absolutely _nothing_. No Flynn, no Mothership, no goons. Nothing but history the way it's always been."

Mason's eyes nervously flitted to Lucy before he looked back at his protégé. "We had no way to contact you after you left, but about ten minutes after you took the Lifeboat out, Flynn and the Mothership returned to the present. He's been here ever since."

"So - what?" Rufus threw up his hands in a gesture of annoyance. "He just went for the experience? See the sights?"

"As far as I can tell," Lucy said, speaking quietly and carefully, "Flynn didn't change anything. We didn't even see him - or any sign of him. Now we know why." There. As long as she didn't speak too loudly or move too quickly, maybe she'd finally reached an equilibrium she could maintain until she could go home, take some pain pills, and go to bed.

Shaking his head, Mason made a shooing motion in their direction. "Well, we'll keep monitoring the Mothership in case Flynn takes it out again. If he does, we'll call you. Until then, go home, try to get some rest, and try not to worry too much, yes?" With a quick "good evening," he turned smartly on his heel and strode off.

Rufus shrugged and headed off to talk to Jiya, who was standing nearby waiting for him. Wyatt motioned Lucy to go ahead of him, and she carefully moved away from the Lifeboat, which was now being swarmed by people cleaning it of anything they might have accidentally brought back with them.

"So what do you think Flynn was doing?" Wyatt asked from his changing cubicle once they were in the huge loading dock Mason had converted into a dressing room.

Lucy carefully changed from her traveling clothes into the jeans, t-shirt, and sweater she'd been wearing when she arrived at Mason Industries. "I don't know," she admitted. Closing her eyes and bracing one hand against the wall of her own cubicle until a wave of dizziness passed, she cleared her throat and went on. "Maybe he received some bad information, or he was casing the area. It could even be that he was planning something, and he was interrupted by something or someone he hadn't counted on. The possibilities are nearly infinite." At this point, she'd just take the fact that nothing changed at face value and be happy about it.

Wyatt's door clicked open, and she heard his footsteps heading toward the rack where they hung their clothes when they returned so the pieces could be washed and carefully returned to their proper places later. "It's going to drive me crazy, not knowing."

Pressing her hand against the throbbing right side of her head, Lucy swallowed hard and prayed for strength before opening the door of her cubicle and moving to hang her own clothes up. "Me too. But at this point, I'm just happy we had a somewhat peaceful mission, for once. I can't imagine this is going to happen very often."

Frowning, Wyatt shook his head and tucked his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "Sure wish it happened more often. Or, even better, that we didn't have to go on these crazy missions in the first place. It just isn't natural, time travel."

"No, it's not." Lucy sighed and dug in her purse for her cell phone. "Well, have a good evening, all right? Hopefully it'll be a while before we get called back in." Her hand closed around her cell, but when she tried to pull it out, it slipped through her fingers and clattered to the floor. Instinctively she reached out to grab it, but a sudden vicious stab of pain made her stumble and lose her balance.

"Whoa!" Wyatt caught her and pulled her upright, hanging on to her upper arms as she tried to focus her gaze on his face. There appeared to be two of him floating in front of her. "Hey, Lucy, are you okay?"

Squeezing her eyes shut, Lucy bit back a whimper while simultaneously curling her hands into fists to resist the urge to clasp her hands to her head. "Migraine," she whispered. "Started in the past. Keeps getting worse. Going to - to call a cab." Her car would just have to stay on the lot for now. Undoubtedly she'd be coming back to the building fairly soon and could just pick it up then.

"Do you think it's an unexpected side-effect of time travel? It's not like there's a book or a page online we can go to which talks about things like that." Wyatt made sure Lucy was steady on her feet before he leaned over to pick up her cell phone and hand it to her. "Maybe we should take you to the on-site doc."

Lucy started to shake her head; stopped abruptly when her head throbbed again. "No, this is far from the first migraine I've had. They pop up sometimes when I'm tired, or stressed. Or both. I have medicine at home I can take for it. That's why I need my phone, to call a cab." She focused on each word as it formed and left her mouth so she could string her sentences together correctly and not stutter or trail off, which she'd been known to do during some of her worse migraines.

Which, naturally, this one was turning out to be. At least she wasn't in a classroom full of students, but really, she wasn't sure the current situation was much better.

Offering her a doubtful tilt of his brows, Wyatt slipped her hand into the crook of his arm and guided her toward the door. "All right, if you say so. But forget the cab, Lucy. I'll drive you home."

"You don't have to do that," Lucy said, but her protest was half-hearted at best.

"I want to," Wyatt replied firmly. Letting go of her arm, he continued, "Now stay here for a minute, okay? I'll pull the car around and pick you up. Looks like it's going to start pouring any second now."

When Wyatt pushed open the door, a rush of wind swirled through the opening, hitting Lucy straight in the face. She let out her breath when he pushed the door to hasten its closing, then heard the first of the predicted raindrops rattle against the roof as he jogged across the lot to his truck, parked just a few spots down from her car.

Lucy heard Rufus and Jiya's voices approaching as Wyatt pulled up, and went on outside. She didn't feel like trying to explain her migraine to two more people, and having them insist she go to a doctor too when all she needed was to go home. She just wanted to curl up and go to sleep. After, of course, taking some pills to relieve the crushing pain in her head.

Slipping into the passenger seat of the truck before Wyatt could get out to come around to help her, Lucy closed the door as quietly as she could and reached for the seatbelt just as the rain started pounding down on the truck. She'd gotten inside just in time.

Leaning her head against the window, Lucy tried to ignore the sound of the rain and the thunder, which could be heard even over the sound of the truck's engine, as Wyatt drove. Keeping her eyes slitted against the bright flashes of lightning and the street lights, Lucy gave her companion directions to her house.

Wyatt made vague noises in the back of his throat to acknowledge her directions, following them perfectly. But even through her haze of pain she sensed his distraction, as if he were thinking of something else instead of focusing completely on his driving.

She thought about questioning him, but couldn't quite work up the energy. She'd do it later, when she felt better.

As they finally turned onto her street, Lucy closed her eyes and let out a long, shaky sigh. _Almost there. Almost there, and then I can take a pill and go to bed..._ It was barely eight in the evening, but she was so tired. So tired...

A few moments later, Wyatt gently touched her arm. "We're here," he said softly. "Just a second and I'll come around with the umbrella. Don't get out till I get there."

Keeping her eyes closed against the overhead light, Lucy mumbled an affirmative. When Wyatt closed his door, she fumbled with her seatbelt for a few moments, getting it unclicked right before he opoened the door and held out the umbrella.

To Lucy's surprise, Wyatt slipped his arm around her waist as she got out. It helped her shaky equilibrium as he guided her up the stone walkway to the front door, where the motion detector light clicked on to bathe the lock in its blue-white glow so she could see to insert the key.

"Here, let me." Wyatt took the keys from her hand and smoothly inserted the key into the lock. "Your mom's not home?"

"No," Lucy mumbled as Wyatt guided her into the house, leaving his wet umbrella on the front porch. "She had - had a meeting. With her coworkers. At the university." It was so weird to think of her mother working at the same university at which she did, which technically made her Lucy's boss since she was head of the history department.

The two of them slipped out of their wet shoes and left them by the front door. Lucy was grateful when Wyatt didn't turn on any lights, instead allowing what little was coming through the windows flanking the front door guide them down the hall to the kitchen.

"Where are your pills?" Wyatt asked as Lucy propped herself against the counter. "If you want, I'll make you a cup of tea and some toast while you go put on some more comfortable clothes. I can get your pills ready for you, too."

"Pills are in the cabinet between the stove and microwave," Lucy said, pointing. "The pills are orange, and it's the only prescription bottle in there with the vitamins and over-the-counter stuff. I get two of them. And tea sounds really good." She paused to swallow hard. "Not so much the toast."

"Just one slice?" Wyatt stepped over to rest his hand on her shoulder, his eyes shining in the dim light he'd switched on under the microwave. She was glad he'd chosen that one over the much brighter overheads. "You shouldn't take those pain pills on an empty stomach."

Reluctantly, Lucy waved her hand in affirmation. "Okay. Just one slice. Honey for the toast and in the tea, please."

"Okay." Wyatt squeezed her shoulder gently, then turned her toward the doorway and guided her forward. "I'll figure it out. Go on, Lucy. I'll have everything ready when you get back."

"'kay." Lucy shuffled her way down the hall and up the stairs to her room. She heard cabinet doors opening and closing downstairs as she sped up her pace the last few steps. _Hurry, hurry, hurry!_

She made it to her bathroom just in time to lose the meager contents of her stomach, her head feeling like it was about to split in half. Slumping against the tub, she rested the pulsing side of her head against its coolness and took a few seconds to gather the dregs of her energy to get up and get a wet cloth.

After bathing her face and rinsing her mouth four times, Lucy shuffled into her bedroom and changed into a comfortable pair of yoga pants and her favorite top - a purple tee with a bespectled owl on it - by the dim light of her bedside lamp. Forgoing slippers, she left her room barefoot as she pulled on the loose, flowered robe she'd had for years and had just gotten broken in. It welcomed her like an old friend, and she pulled its comfortable front panels around her as she carefully descended the stairs.

As promised, a cup of steaming tea and a single slice of buttered toast sat on the kitchen counter waiting for her. Wyatt looked over from where he was just pulling down the honey bear from the cabinet next to the fridge, a soft smile on his face. "Hey. Better?"

"More comfortable, anyway." Lucy sank down onto a kitchen stool and accepted the honey with a murmured "thanks." As she stirred the sweet goop into her tea, Wyatt set two of her migraine pills on the counter next to her left hand.

Lucy motioned to the cabinets and fridge with her free hand. "Help yourself to anything that looks good," she murmured as she reached for her tea cup. "The least I can do after you brought me home and did all this is give you something to eat. Sorry-" she swallowed down her first sip of tea, waiting for it to settle before going on "-sorry I'm not getting up to do it myself."

Wyatt lightly touched her shoulder in a silent gesture of gratitude on his way past to the fridge. He came back a few moments later with an orange and a bottle of water, settling onto the stool next to her with a knife and bowl for his orange.

The two of them sat in companionable silence, occasionally trading a murmured word or two as Lucy waited for her pain pills to kick in. The longer she sat and sipped at her tea, the more her stomach settled, until she felt able to finish off her toast without the fear of losing it.

Eventually the pills started to kick in, and Lucy felt her eyelids beginning to grow heavy. She knew she should go up to bed, but she didn't want to leave the comfortable companionship she had with Wyatt. Things had been tense between them since their kiss to fool Bonnie and Clyde, and after the Jesse James mission, things had only further eroded. Even their short conversation before that ill-fated mission seemed very far away, like it had happened to two other people.

She startled and nearly fell off her stool when she slipped sideways, her head bouncing off Wyatt's shoulder. "I'm so sorry!" she gasped, cheeks flushing hotly.

A soft chuckle warmed her in a nice way, seeming to help her headache. "I'm guessing your pills are kicking in?" he asked softly.

"Mm-hm." Lucy nodded, relieved when the instinctive motion didn't increase the level of pain in her head. The tea and toast _had_ helped settle the last bit of her nausea, and it was nice not to feel her stomach pitching and rolling like she'd just taken a particularly rough ride in the Lifeboat.

Slipping off his stool, Wyatt helped her off her own seat and guided her toward the stairs. "Here, let me help you up to your room. You get some sleep and feel better, and I'll clean up the kitchen and leave you to rest, okay?"

Lucy hung on to Wyatt's supportive hand as he guided her up the stairs. "Thank you," she whispered. "And not just for - for making me tea and toast and bringing me home and cleaning up the kitchen and..." She trailed off, unable to carry that thought any further through the medicine-induced fog descending over her mind.

"You're welcome, Lucy. What are-" he hesitated, waiting for her to prompt him as to which door was hers before leading her in that direction. "Well, you know, after all, what are friends for, right?"

Even despite the muzzy feeling caused by the pain and the medicine, Lucy detected a strange note in Wyatt's voice when he said the word _friends_. Not quite sure what to make of it and too muddled to try, Lucy let Wyatt fold back her covers and help her into bed without protest.

Tucking the blankets lightly but securely around her, Wyatt smiled down at her. "Comfortable?" he asked, propping his hands on his hips in satisfaction. Despite his smile, a shadow lurked behind his striking blue eyes-

-Or maybe that was just caused by her lamp. Snuggling down into the welcoming embrace of her blanket, Lucy hummed. "Yep. Than' you." Her tongue felt fuzzy and heavy, kind of like the rest of her.

"Good." Wyatt lightly tapped her blanket-covered foot on the way to the door. There he paused, and Lucy forced her eyes to open when she heard him stop. "Hey, Lucy?"

"Yes?" She was proud of herself for getting the word out without slurring or stuttering, but decided she'd better not dare any more.

He studied her for a while from beneath his brows, drawn down low over his eyes as if he were worried. For a long few moments Lucy held her breath, sensing the words hovering unspoken between them were somehow life-changing, earth-shattering.

Shaking his head, at last Wyatt looked away with a quick smile. "Nothing. Just - get to feeling better, all right? We'll talk later." Without another word, he was gone, his footsteps descending the stairs.

Lucy blinked at her now-empty doorway, feeling oddly bereft. _What was he going to say?_ She wanted to get up out of bed and chase him downstairs, then shake him until he finally told her what was on his mind.

But she sensed he didn't want to talk about it, though she wondered if it had anything to do with his distracted air on the way home from Mason Industries. Regardless, she knew she didn't have the energy or strength to pry it out of him.

So instead, after another whispered "thank you, Wyatt" to the soft sounds he made downstairs as he cleaned up, Lucy closed her eyes and let herself drift off into a deep, healing sleep, filled with dreams of a dark-haired hero with a devastating smile and enigmatic blue, blue eyes.

 ***~The End~***

 **Author's Note:** I don't remember it being stated at any point during the show what Lucy's mother does since she's no longer dying of cancer, so I just figured she'd be working at the university again, so please forgive me if I'm wrong on that plot point. This fic was inspired by two things. The first is that I couldn't help but notice how the dynamic between Wyatt and Lucy had changed between _The Murder of Jesse James_ and the beginning of _Karma Chameleon_. Things were so tense between them during the former that it seemed strange it had relaxed by the time _Karma Chameleon_ came around. This fic is just a little theory of mine, a way to explain the shift between them between the two episodes. The second is that I had a horrendous migraine during the last few hours of my most recent birthday, and it helped inspire the reason why things might have changed between them. Happy eclipse day, everybody, and I hope you enjoyed this fic! Thank you so much for taking the time to read it!


	2. Part II: Wyatt

Please see part one for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.

Part: 2/2

 **Author's Note:** So apparently _Counterbalance_ wasn't as finished as I thought it was. Originally it was meant to be a oneshot, but several reviewers wondered about what Wyatt was going to say at the end of part one, and it wasn't fair that I knew what it was going to be, and no one else did. So I wrote a second part, from Wyatt's point of view, that I hope answers all the questions raised in part one. Thank you so much for all the reviews, favorites, and alerts for the first chapter, and I hope you enjoy this part!

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 ***~Counterbalance~***

Part II

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Wyatt spent most of his time changing back into modern-day clothes wondering what, exactly, had gone wrong during their mission. He wasn't used to things going bust in quite that way. Flynn did get away from them more than once, granted, but to have missed him _completely_? And for him to have done absolutely nothing to change the timeline, as far as Lucy could tell?

Something wasn't right.

He was just hoping this wasn't some sort of sign that his own personal mission, on which he planned to embark shortly, was going to go bust as well.

Forcing his mind away from that thought and its potential ramifications, Wyatt pulled his t-shirt over his head and called to Lucy, two cubicles away, "So what do you think Flynn was doing?"

"I don't know," Lucy responded. A long silence followed, and Wyatt was beginning to think she wasn't going to say any more. However, as he sat down to pull on his shoes, she continued. "Maybe he received some bad information, or he was casing the area. It could even be that he was planning something, and he was interrupted by something or someone he hadn't counted on. The possibilities are nearly infinite."

Wyatt swung open the door and went to hang his clothes on the return rack nearby as he digested Lucy's words. Regardless of whether Flynn was out for a jaunt or had been deterred from any plans he had, perhaps it would be best for them to take the win and not look the gift horse in the mouth.

But still... "It's going to drive me crazy, not knowing."

Lucy was quiet for a moment, then the door to her cubicle opened and she came over to hang her clothes next to his. "Me too. But at this point, I'm just happy we had a somewhat peaceful mission, for once. I can't imagine this is going to happen very often." Sighing, she stared at her time-travel outfit for a long moment, a strange look on her face.

Perhaps the mission had bothered her more than she let on. Tucking his hands in his pockets, Wyatt frowned and offered a little shrug. "Sure wish it happened more often. Or, even better, that we didn't have to go on these crazy missions in the first place. It just isn't natural, time travel." _But if time travel hadn't been invented, I wouldn't have met Lucy or Rufus._

 _And I wouldn't have a chance to get Jessica back._ He didn't dare give voice to that last thought. He already knew what Lucy would say in response, and neither of them would like it.

"No, it's not." Lucy sighed as she ducked her head, digging in her purse for her cell phone. "Well, have a good evening, all right? Hopefully it'll be a while before we get called back in." She pulled her hand out of her purse, closed around her cell phone, but it slipped through her fingers and clattered to the floor.

Wyatt saw her sway for a second before she lurched forward to try to catch it. Then she let out a soft cry and started falling, and he realized she was going to hit the floor if he didn't stop her.

"Whoa!" Wyatt caught her around the waist and carefully settled her back upright, hanging on to her upper arms until he was sure she was steady on her feet. But he could see the way her eyes stared at him, unfocused, as if she were dizzy or couldn't quite see straight. "Hey, Lucy, are you okay?" As soon as he asked it he knew it was a stupid question, since he could see she wasn't, but he hoped it would prompt her to tell him what was going on with her.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Lucy made a soft sound in the back of her throat as he saw her hands curl into fists at her sides. "Migraine," she whispered. "Started in the past. Keeps getting worse. Going to - to call a cab."

"Do you think it's an unexpected side-effect of time travel? It's not like there's a book or a page online we can go to which talks about things like that." Wyatt slowly let go of Lucy and watched her for a second to make sure she would stay upright before he leaned over, picked up her phone, and handed it back to her. "Maybe we should take you to the on-site doc."

Lucy started to shake her head, then stopped abruptly as if the motion made her pain level spike. "No, this is far from the first migraine I've had. They pop up sometimes when I'm tired, or stressed. Or both. I have medicine at home I can take for it. That's why I need my phone, to call a cab." She pronounced each word clearly and carefully, as if she were having to focus practically on each later to make sure she didn't slur or stutter.

Feeling extremely doubtful, Wyatt tilted his brows at her as he slipped her hand into the crook of his arm and guided her toward the door. "All right, if you say so. But forget the cab, Lucy. I'll drive you home." He'd watch her carefully the whole way, and if it so much as looked like she was getting worse (was that even possible at this point?), he'd turn around and bring her straight back.

"You don't have to do that," Lucy said, but it was obvious her protest was half-hearted at best.

"I want to," Wyatt replied firmly. Letting go of her arm, he continued, "Now stay here for a minute, okay? I'll pull the car around and pick you up. Looks like it's going to start pouring any second now."

When Wyatt pushed open the door, a rush of wind smacked him in the face before rushing past him into the building. He shoved the door closed against the wind's greedy overtures before jogging toward his truck. The first few raindrops splattered across the windshield and caught his arm as he reached out to pull the door closed behind himself.

 _Great._ He heard thunder rumble right before he started his truck and headed for the front door of Mason Industries. This storm certainly wasn't going to help Lucy's headache any. Already the drops were getting bigger and hammering against the roof as if they were demanding to be let inside.

Lucy hardly waited for him to pull to a stop and put the truck in park before she clambered into the passenger seat, closing the door behind herself as quietly as she could. Raindrops sparkled in her dark hair in the flash of lightning and the glare of the dash as she clicked her seatbelt and sagged against the window, eyes shut.

At first Wyatt thought she'd passed out, but then she told him which way to turn out of the parking lot. Wyatt shared a quick, significant look with Rufus, who was just coming out of the building with Jiya, then put his truck in gear again and pulled away.

Knowing Lucy was in no state for conversation, Wyatt stayed silent as he drove. Each time he glanced over, he saw her eyes slitted open as she watched where he was going, prompting him a little ways before each turn he needed to take to get her home. He tried to avoid as many rough places in the road as possible, but knew each one he couldn't had to be increasing her pain level.

A few minutes later, Wyatt held an umbrella over himself and Lucy as he escorted her from his truck to her front door. When Lucy fumbled her keys, he took them from her and unlocked the door. She looked like she was about to cry, and he wished he could do _something_ to take away her pain.

He hated feeling so helpless.

Looking around the dark foyer, Wyatt set the wet umbrella just outside the door on the porch and shut the door behind himself. "Your mom's not home?"

"No." Lucy stepped out of her shoes, then shuffled down the hall toward a dark doorway. "She had a meeting. With her coworkers. At the university." Again, her sentences came out stilted and precise, and she sounded so very tired.

He followed her, closely enough to catch her if she stumbled but not so much he invaded her personal space. Allowing what little light filtered in through the windows flanking the front door to illuminate his path, he slipped past Lucy into the spacious kitchen and took quick stock of the room and its visible contents.

After cataloguing the location of the microwave and the likely places cups and saucers would be, Wyatt finally spoke into the silence which had fallen between them. "Where are your pills?" He glanced over his shoulder, noticing Lucy had propped herself against the counter as if it were the only thing still keeping her on her feet. "If you want, I'll make you a cup of tea and some toast while you go put on some more comfortable clothes. I can get your pills ready for you, too."

"Pills are in the cabinet between the stove and microwave," Lucy said, pointing. "The pills are orange, and it's the only prescription bottle in there with the vitamins and over-the-counter stuff. I get two of them. And tea sounds really good." She paused, and he saw her swallow hard as her face drained of what little color had been left in it. "Not so much the toast."

"Just one slice?" Wyatt stepped over to rest his hand on her shoulder, partly in support and partly in encouragement. Her eyes looked dull in the dim glow of the light he'd found under the microwave. He figured it would be enough to see by without causing unnecessary further pain to Lucy's head. "You shouldn't take those pain pills on an empty stomach."

With obvious reluctance, Lucy waved her hand in weak affirmation. "Okay. Just one slice. Honey for the toast and in the tea, please."

"Okay." Wyatt squeezed her shoulder gently, then turned her toward the doorway and guided her forward with a hand between her shoulder blades. He couldn't help but notice how thin they felt beneath the fabric of her sweater - thinner than usual, as if her pain had drained the vitality and health right out of her. "I'll figure it out. Go on, Lucy. I'll have everything ready when you get back."

"'kay." Lucy shuffled off, and he waited until he heard her ascend the steps safely before he turned back to the kitchen.

Through trial and error, Wyatt found everything he needed for the toast and tea. He made a soothing peppermint blend, hoping it would help the nausea he could tell Lucy had been feeling. After setting the tea to steep in a purple mug covered in white dog paws, he set the bread to toasting as he went hunting for the honey bear. He found it on the shelf above Lucy's headache medicine, and snagged it after shaking two of the orange oval pills into his hand.

While turning to set the honey and pills on the counter in front of one of the stools, Lucy came back into the kitchen. Her bare feet made little noise on the floor, and he noticed her toenails were painted a pale pink (surely _that_ wasn't historically accurate for most of the places they went, but it wasn't like they would be seen by anyone but herself, and even then in the present). She wore sweatpants, a purple shirt with a wise-looking owl on it, and a well-worn flowered robe that clashed terribly with the tee.

"Hey," he greeted her, noticing her face was freshly scrubbed and she was even paler than she'd been when she went upstairs. "Better?" At least she looked more comfortable, physically.

Offering him a thin smile, she settled down on her stool and stared down at the tea and toast he'd made. "More comfortable, anyway." She waited for him to set the honey and pills down before adding a murmured, "Thanks."

After stirring the honey into her tea, Lucy motioned to the cabinets and fridge with her free hand. "Help yourself to anything that looks good." She reached for her teacup, lifting it towards her lips as she added, "The least I can do after you brought me home and did all this is give you something to eat. Sorry-" she swallowed down her first sip of tea, obviously waiting for it to settle before going on "-sorry I'm not getting up to do it myself."

Wyatt lightly touched her shoulder in a silent gesture of gratitude on his way past to the fridge. He figured the less noise he said, the better for the pain level in her head. After pulling an orange and a bottle of water out of the fridge, he got a bowl and knife for the citrusy treat, then settled onto the stool next to hers.

He allowed the silence to settle around the two of them as he ate his orange and drank his water. Keeping an eye on Lucy, he watched the minutes tick by on the microwave clock as they both waited for her pills to kick in.

As time went by, he saw her shoulders start to relax, the lines around her mouth ease, and the tension seep out of her expression. After a half hour or so, she started making small comments, and he responded with equally short answers.

 _That's a good sign_ , Wyatt thought, wiping his sticky fingers on a paper towel. _Her pills must be kicking in, finally._

They lapsed back into silence, and Wyatt tried to ignore the thoughts lingering in the back of his mind. The two of them hadn't _talked_ , the way they had before, in quite a while. In fact, before today, they hadn't really said more than a few dozen words to each other since before leaving to track down Flynn, though unfortunately they hadn't managed to stop him from meeting up with Jesse James in the past.

In truth, Wyatt just wasn't sure what to say to her anymore. The kiss they'd shared still burned in his memories, mostly when he was sleeping but more and more often when he was awake, too. It had created a tension between them that hadn't been there before...

...Or, he admitted wryly to himself, it _had_ been, and he just hadn't wanted to acknowledge it. The kiss had only further fanned the flame. But thinking about it, let alone acting on it, felt too much like a betrayal of Jessica, particularly since his plan had finally taken shape fully and he had Rufus's agreement to help him.

Wyatt was abruptly pulled from his thoughts when Lucy slipped sideways on her stool, her head bouncing gently off his shoulder. Sparks shivered up through his neck and exploded in his head, and it was all he could do to make his chuckle sound natural as he replied to her breathless apology.

"I'm guessing your pills are kicking in?" he asked softly, smiling down at her slightly dazed expression.

"Mm-hm." Lucy nodded, and a relieved expression washed across her face. Apparently the motion hadn't caused her worse pain, and her face had regained some color, easing away a little of the scary paleness.

Slipping off his stool, Wyatt helped her off her own seat and guided her toward the stairs. "Here, let me help you up to your room. You get some sleep and feel better, and I'll clean up the kitchen and leave you to rest, okay?" Hopefully he'd be able to slip away before Lucy's mother got home and he had to try to explain his presence at the house - and how he knew Lucy. He wasn't sure what she'd told her mother about her job at Mason Industries, and he didn't want to do or say something to make Carol suspicious.

Lucy's hand felt cool as she clung to Wyatt's supportive hand as he guided her up the stairs. "Thank you," she whispered. "And not just for - for making me tea and toast and bringing me home and cleaning up the kitchen and..." She trailed off dreamily.

"You're welcome, Lucy. What are-" He stopped, nearly choking on the words as they reached the top of the steps. _You're lying if you finish that sentence, Logan. Don't do it._

Apparently Lucy thought he was waiting for her to show him where her room was, because she lifted her hand and pointed to a half-open door down the hall. Then she looked up at him expectantly, and he realized she was waiting for him to finish his sentence.

"Well, you know, after all, what are friends for, right?" The words burned his throat, but he couldn't take them back, and he couldn't change them. Because, at least for the moment, they _were_ still friends. Because he hadn't betrayed her yet, and she didn't know he was about to do so.

Lucy didn't respond past a muzzy smile as Wyatt helped her fold down the blankets on her bed, then guided her gently down onto the mattress so she wouldn't fall or go down too hard and jar her head. Tucking the blankets lightly but securely around her, Wyatt smiled down at her, hoping his eyes didn't betray anything he didn't want her to know. "Comfortable?" _Maybe she won't notice anything's wrong, or remember any of this come tomorrow._

Snuggling down under her blanket and against her pillow, Lucy hummed adorably. "Yep. Than' you."

"Good." Wyatt lightly tapped her blanket-covered foot on the way to the door. He needed to get out before he did something they'd both regret later.

 _You need to tell her, Logan_. He stopped in the doorway, torn between the urge to turn back or run down the stairs and out the door, and not stop until he'd gotten back to Mason Industries. _She deserves to know what you're going to do._

Before he could stop himself, he turned back to see her staring at him through heavily-lidded eyes, her expression puzzled. Swallowing hard, he said, "Hey, Lucy?"

"Yes?" The word was expectant, even though it was obvious she was having to force herself to keep her eyes open, her mind aware.

The truth hovered on the tip of his tongue, begging for release. _Say it, you coward._ Wyatt swallowed hard, nausea swirling in his gut. He was beginning to regret that orange.

Looking into Lucy's soft eyes, with her dark hair fanned on her pillow and a gentle smile on her face, Wyatt knew he couldn't do it. He couldn't add to her pain, her disappointment. He couldn't crush the fragile balance of her world, not tonight. Not after everything else weighing so heavily on her the past week - longer than that, really.

Shaking his head, at last Wyatt forced himself to look away. Curling his lips into a quick smile, he shook his head, trying to play off the past few seconds as unimportant. "Nothing. Just - get to feeling better, all right? We'll talk later."

Without waiting for her response, Wyatt forced himself to turn and go back downstairs. But as he cleaned up Lucy's kitchen and made sure he left everything the way he found it, he had to acknowledge the truth.

He would have to tell her sometime. And neither of them would like what happened after that.

But no matter what, he _had to do it_.

 ***~The End~***

 **Author's Ending Notes:** So even though I intended _Counterbalance_ to be a oneshot when I wrote the first part, several reviewers wondered what Wyatt was going to say at the end of part one. It wasn't fair that I knew and no one else did, so I wrote this second part, which I hope answers all the questions raised in the first part. Thank you all so much for your reviews, favorites, and alerts for the first part, and I very much hope you enjoyed this one, too!


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